AARL

Warren Horton AM
23 June 1938 - 25 November 2003

Some reflections on the man by a close friend and colleague

Frances H Awcock

Warren Horton's death came after a prolonged and valiant fight with cancer.

His was a towering presence on the state, national and international scene of librarianship. His contribution to that world was remarkable and he was much rewarded for it by our professional bodies at home and abroad, by the academic community and the book world, as well as by the Australian government on behalf of the people with his Order of Australia award.

Biographic synopsis

Warren Michael Horton, the son of John Horton and Iris Purcell, was born in Ryde, Sydney, just 13 months prior to the start of World War II. This was the time when Donald Bradman was at the height of his powers and, just two days before Horton's birth, had scored a century at Old Trafford in the record-breaking time of 73 minutes. Perhaps it was coincidence, but Warren grew up to be extremely interested in Test cricket, following the fortunes of the Australian team with great interest.

Warren's father had initially worked as an accountant in a manufacturing business. He subsequently opened a corner grocery shop, apparently to his family's considerable embarrassment. Warren grew up in Dee Why, one of Sydney's northern beachside suburbs, attending the Dee Why Public School until 1949 when he won the scholarship that took him to Canberra Grammar School as a boarder, completing his schooling there in 1955. He then took 17 years to complete an Arts degree from Sydney University! Its completion was a springboard to his subsequent career.

Career synopsis

Grounding in his chosen profession and then his developing career was at the State Library of NSW (1957-1981) where he rose from one of its humblest positions to that of one of its loftiest - deputy state librarian (1974-1981). From that position he came to Victoria as state librarian (1981-1985). It was in this role that he commissioned and, successfully for its time, implemented the recommendations of a major review by the then Public Service Board into the operations and structure of the State Library of Victoria and its relationship with public and government department libraries in Victoria.

During his years at the helm in Victoria, a major groundswell of public and staff opinion led ultimately to the major rebuilding and renewal of the buildings on the Swanston Street site, although it fell to his successors to achieve what for Warren had been not much more than a dream.

His appointment from mid 1985 to the National Library of Australia as its distinguished director-general (1985-1999) has been truly significant for our nation. Building on the work of his illustrious predecessor Harrison Bryan, he strengthened the National Library's public program, created much greater public awareness of the library's capacities, broadened its role into that of a venerable (and venerated) cultural institution as well as enhanced its research capacity for Australian materials, commensurate with a tightening resource base. Above all, he secured for Australia the means by which our nation's library collections would be accessible through the Australian Bibliographic Network. This in turn has led to the National Library becoming one of the premier centres in the world for documentation of national information resources, for their preservation and global access to them.

Warren Horton's career was also remarkable for his great work and abiding influence on his chosen profession. This occurred chiefly, and firstly, through the Australian Library and Information Association which he served in many capacities, including as president. He was later made a Fellow, in recognition of splendid service throughout his entire career.

Secondly, the International Federation of Library and Information Associations and Organisations (IFLA) whose treasurer he became, conferred on him its rare and much coveted Gold Medal as well as its highest honour, the Honorary Fellowship. Thirdly, in recognition of the value he placed on professional mentoring of younger librarians, he established Aurora, a stimulating residential, training and mentoring program where he became lovingly known by its many participants from libraries in Australia and New Zealand as 'the Grand Poo-Bah' - an image of him that will ring true to many who knew him - for he had a huge ego.

His was a towering presence on the state, national and international scene of librarianship.

What sort of person was he?

To me, Warren Horton was a close colleague, mentor and dear friend. When he married Patsy Hardy all those years ago he chose me as his 'best man' and that is how he often introduced me! Our friendship deepened over the years and I am the richer for it. I may therefore, in what follows, be found guilty of partisanship resulting from that friendship.

Those whom he allowed to be close to him could see, beyond the public image, a man whose need for love and friendship was far greater than all the public acclaim he both enjoyed and earned. His wife Patsy Hardy was a perfect partner for him until she died in 1994, nearly a decade before he did, and in whose memory he donated to the Library a series of four specially commissioned embroidered panels entitled Australian Landscapes I-IV by renowned English textile artist Alice Kettle.

He benefited hugely from that marriage in which Patsy's superb intellect, her biting wit, her loving challenging of his ideas, and their shared and abiding interest in politics provided a wellspring for his public life. That marriage came after two earlier, short-lived marriages. He used to jest privately to me about having been a 'child bridegroom' at his first marriage!

Warren's brother (who married Warren's second wife) and twin sister survive him as well as close personal friends who effectively became his 'family' and a veritable army of admirers within his proud profession of librarianship. Many of his closest friends were women who may well have been responsible for him becoming what I have called elsewhere a 'feminised' man. Notwithstanding the strength of his male friendships, it was with women that I felt he became truly himself. With many of us this intimacy was purely platonic, with others apparently it was not.

It must be acknowledged, however, that for all of us who loved and admired him, there were also those who were implacably opposed to him. He could be dismissive and peremptory in his dealings with others. In my view these particular attributes resulted largely from an innate but probably unacknowledged (by him anyway) sense of insecurity in the company of those he did not know or in whose milieu he was uncomfortable. For example, having little knowledge or experience of their world he was ill-at-ease with most businessmen, although being a businesswoman would have been a slight advantage! This meant he was reluctant and unable to 'woo' resources for the Library from that world to any significant degree. I doubt he even tried, in recognition of his limitations.

He could also be dismissive of those with whom he disagreed or of those whose opinions he did not value, and was known to ignore staff even if traveling in the confined spaces of the National Library's lifts. Perhaps this was evidence of shyness since he was very short of 'small talk', despite loving to gossip with his friends, for he was inordinately interested in human foibles, an endearing feature to those close to him but probably infuriating to others, had they been privy to such conversations. He also was a fierce hater if he felt he had been wronged. He did not forgive easily.

In my view his illness made him a better person, softening some of these harsher qualities and providing a new perspective on the human frailties he despised. None of his early animosities did he appear to take with him 'to the grave'. (He was actually cremated.)

Although Warren prided himself on being the arch public servant in not disclosing his political views or affiliations and in maintaining complete impartiality in his public life, developing harmonious professional relationships with his ministers from both parties, privately, he was proudly of the left. He certainly approved of Patsy's membership of the Fabian Society although to my knowledge was not a member of any political group or party himself, except in spirit. He loved to talk politics around the dinner table - or anywhere else his friends had gathered, and had a great sense of injustice on both the small and large scale.

In keeping with the person he was, it was political life in the larger dimensions that particularly enthralled him. World events held his abiding interest, with American politics in particular his special field of private reading, discussion, enjoyment and frustration. No matter how much he may have despised the current hegemony of the United States and its ill-sought ascendancy over the Middle East and elsewhere, he loved to travel to the United States and took pleasure in its great political and cultural institutions. When in Boston for the annual IFLA Conference, he took me to the Kennedy Memorial Centre and Library and proudly showed me around as though it were his own, having visited it previously, and I understand, subsequently on his last visit to the USA before he died.

In his last years his travel was largely with his close friends Gay and John Wood whose company he loved and with whom he spent several Christmases, even joining them in Caracas, Venezuela, on more than one occasion while they were on a foreign posting. He always anticipated these visits with great relish and was proud that he managed the travel and its attendant risk to his deteriorating condition, even from the vantage of first class travel - or 'at the pointy end' as he would say with slight embarrassment.

Warren was an eclectic and avid reader as his substantial personal library attested. He was quick to recommend books he had enjoyed to his friends and some of us were the beneficiaries of his reading enjoyment when he would buy us copies of works he thought we too would relish or find stimulating. As recorded in a 1994 interview with the Canberra Times, a highlight of the week at Dee Why had been the family's Saturday afternoon walk to the local subscription library 'where we loaded ourselves up with many volumes for the next week.'

Music was another of his great pleasures. He had built a substantial collection of classical recordings, encompassing all the great composers of western music; he loved church choral music, especially hymns, despite his atheism. This was undoubtedly one of the legacies of his secondary schooling at Canberra Church of England Boys' Grammar School as it was known at that time.

Although he was far from 'sporty' and to the best of my knowledge did not play beyond his schooling, he loved two sports in particular: Test cricket - barracking for Australia, of course - and Rugby Union. The latter was of interest to him right up until his death when the World Series was being played in Australia. Locally, he followed the fortunes of the Canberra Brumbies, often watching them in the company of his friends Ian McCallum and Sherrey Quinn. Television gave him immense pleasure, with his favoured sports providing hours of pleasurable viewing, especially when he was too weak or tired to venture out. He certainly enjoyed going out right up until only a few weeks before his death, driving his yellow sports Renault to meet friends for a late breakfast, a coffee, or lunch or dinner. On many such occasions I was one of those who could be seen with him at Manuka or Kingston where the ambience, the coffee and the food were good, even if his health was not.

This was the man I knew - complex, chameleon-like, passionate when he chose, proud, dedicated to his work, intensely interested in the big issues of the world and how they played out on the political stage, loving and loyal to his closest friends while impatient with those for whom he could not bother to find common ground. These were all evident, often contradictorily so, in Warren Horton, colleague, mentor and friend.

Frances H Awcock (please remove '.nospam' from address) AM was director of the State Library of South Australia from 1991-1997 and chief executive officer and state librarian of the State Library of Victoria from 1997-2002. With two architects she has recently undertaken a major scoping study for the refurbishment of the National Library of Papua New Guinea. Since her 'retirement' she has become a civil marriage celebrant and is an active member of two boards.